I went to see the new Spiderman (which was awesome, by the way, IMHO) and got to the theatre early. Had some time to kill, so I put a buck into the Time Crisis game - the one where you step on the pedal to come out from cover and then shoot with the arcade gun.
The last time I played a game like this was back in high school, before I knew much about guns or proper gun handling. It was rather interesting to note that I transferred a lot of the little things over from what I've learned since, including - keeping my finger outside of the trigger guard while not firing (ducked behind cover, or during the cutscenes where I move), keeping the gun down and away from the screen (away from teammates and civilians) while not firing, and so on. It wasn't even conscious at first - after going through the first few firing positions, I realized I was doing this, and it made me smile.
Oh, range review - the gun sucked. The sights were off (I was consistently hitting an inch to the left, had to just point shoot) and the trigger was absolutely terrible.
In all seriousness, though, this thread was more about the second paragraph, and how training for safety makes the safe practice subconscious. It's still there, and you know it's there, but if the practices are ingrained, you don't have to think about how to safely handle a firearm - it should always be on your mind, but if you can get it into muscle memory, you can save brain cells for situational awareness and threat assessment.
The last time I played a game like this was back in high school, before I knew much about guns or proper gun handling. It was rather interesting to note that I transferred a lot of the little things over from what I've learned since, including - keeping my finger outside of the trigger guard while not firing (ducked behind cover, or during the cutscenes where I move), keeping the gun down and away from the screen (away from teammates and civilians) while not firing, and so on. It wasn't even conscious at first - after going through the first few firing positions, I realized I was doing this, and it made me smile.
Oh, range review - the gun sucked. The sights were off (I was consistently hitting an inch to the left, had to just point shoot) and the trigger was absolutely terrible.
In all seriousness, though, this thread was more about the second paragraph, and how training for safety makes the safe practice subconscious. It's still there, and you know it's there, but if the practices are ingrained, you don't have to think about how to safely handle a firearm - it should always be on your mind, but if you can get it into muscle memory, you can save brain cells for situational awareness and threat assessment.
